Sunday, March 24, 2013

The last time I wrote about Ann Wood's sculptures of animals, I assumed that there was some political or ethical meaning underlying them. And there may be, but looking at her installation Festoon at Avis Frank Gallery, it's hard to discern a particular statement she is trying to make. Which is just as well--it allows the viewer to let the weird confluence of visual elements wash over her.

Avis Frank has two gallery rooms, and one has always been a little bit awkward for displaying work. It's a weird shape and has lots of windows and a low ceiling. Gallery director David Hardaker made a bold decision to hand it over to artists for installations--Ann Wood's Festoon is the first.

Festoon is a nature scene with a reclining deer and a curious coyote and lots of flowers. But there is nothing--literally nothing--natural about it. The animals are taxidermy forms (used by taxidermists to fit the skins of animal trophies around), they are coated with puffy poured latex (apparently the same stuff make-up artists use to create face prosthetics for movies)--even the flowers are plastic. And the colors, of course, are super-saturated pastels.

The whole thing reminds me a bit of Takashi Murakami's superflat esthetic. It seems specifically to reflect Japanese notion of kawaii, a kind of highly stylized cuteness that, to Western sensibilities, seems almost overwhelming, like eating something that is way too sweet.

I disagree. For one thing, the poured latex adds a slightly disquieting feeling, a feeling of disgust. I should have written about that. It feels chemical, toxic. That contrasts interestingly to the "cuteness." Besides, to me kitsch is unreflecting. Ordinary taxidermied animals are kitsch. This is something else.

Ann also plays with the contrast between cute and horror. The "elk" has a pool of sparkly blood pouring out below it, and the coyote seems to be waiting for the elk to bleed to death before devouring it. Ann played with this mix of kitsch and horror at Art League recently with her "stuck pig" bleeding sparkly blood from its flower festooned body.

All of Ann's work deals with attraction and repulsion. The intention is to drag you into the work through it's scale, color and frosted whimsy and then once there, have you somewhat distressed that your joy appears to be at the expense of a dying animal, a pig hung for slaughter or a dog fight.